1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates generally to business intelligence software and systems and, more particularly, to management of metadata utilized to define user information, presentations and other aspects of business intelligence systems.
2. Brief Description of Related Technology
A wide variety of business functions are commonly supported by software applications and tools. For instance, software has been directed to performance analysis, project tracking, and competitive analysis, to name but a few. One widely available type of business software, often referred to as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, is alone used in a broad array of business areas, including, for instance, manufacturing, distribution, purchasing, accounting, and personnel management. In these ways, software applications and tools have been used in connection with tasks as varied as product planning, inventory maintenance, and customer service.
ERP software and other business applications have typically relied upon a database management system (DBMS) to handle the storage of the often vast amounts of enterprise data involved. The DBMS is also often faced with storing data from a number of disparate business areas or groups. Business applications and the underlying databases typically rely on data schemes involving metadata (in one aspect, data about data) to generally describe and specify the wide-ranging nature of the enterprise data. For example, the metadata for a business application can be used to specify the definitions, sources and relationships of enterprise data underlying tables, fields, etc. of the database that present, in an organized fashion, specific subsets of the enterprise data. Another layer of metadata may then specify the manner in which customized reports detailing, for instance, customer sales orders or inventory status, are generated from the tables, fields and other data constructs supported by the database.
In some business applications, the metadata is aggregated and arranged in the form of a model that describes the data sources and relationships of the enterprise data. For example, metadata models typically specify the familiar names for the data fields (e.g., employee name, address, social security number, etc.), as well as mapping information to bind each object in the model (e.g., employee address) to a data source, database table field, or other location. Without the model, the information identifying the data source or location could be too cryptic for a typical user to define new views, reports, etc. of the data.
The proliferation of business intelligence technologies (e.g., OLAP or online analytical processing) and database-related tools (e.g., ODBC or open database connectivity) has led to widespread utilization of databases in the business context. Often within a single organization, a number of departments or other user groups establish respective information systems. The organization then ends up with multiple databases, and with a variety of different paradigms adopted for retrieving and delivering information from each one. Despite efforts toward standardization and integration, varying preferences across departments or business functions have led to information systems designed and constructed in accordance with the specific needs of the user group (e.g., finance, marketing, etc.). Larger enterprises can also present networking complexities. Moreover, each information system may use an entirely different set of business software tools. These variations in business software tools and information systems can impede information sharing between the user groups.
Software applications have been developed to address the challenges in sharing, and utilizing, information among different information systems, business software applications, and the underlying databases. The various databases within an organization may contain data useful outside of the business unit or user group managing the database. To address this possibility, existing business intelligence software has been directed to compiling and managing the data and information from the various sources in the organization. Several such software applications and systems are made commercially available by Cognos, including Cognos ReportNet and Cognos 8. These systems have provided web-based solutions based on a metadata model defining and characterizing all of the various data sources, data types, intelligence tools, and client users.
The deployment of the Cognos software has often led to significant accomplishments in integration and assimilation of data within an enterprise. Integration has, in fact, been so prominent so as to substantially increase the number of users, user groups, data sources, and data types, being assimilated. The resulting arrangement of metadata can be overwhelmingly large and complex. Under these circumstances, maintaining the integrity of the metadata and, thus, the continued functionality of the system, can be extremely time-consuming and prone to operator error.